


A Hard-Earned Keepsake

by TwoCatsTailoring



Series: The Lives Within [15]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Cor Leonis Week, Gen, Head Injury, cid's a pratt, cor's trials, tempering grounds
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-30
Updated: 2018-01-30
Packaged: 2019-03-11 12:18:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13524105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TwoCatsTailoring/pseuds/TwoCatsTailoring





	A Hard-Earned Keepsake

“You are no King’s Shield.”

Those words echoing out of the tin can of the Blademaster’s face had stayed with him as Cor, his sword arm broken to the point of uselessness and one leg likely broken as well, limped towards where he hoped the path the the Tempering Grounds met with a road.

At this point, any road would do. Or a gas station. Or a hotel. Man a hotel be nice right about now. His head hurt so much, he felt like he could lie down right here and sleep for days. 

It should have been closer than this though. A lot closer. Sure, he’d taken the Blademaster’s last sword-seal but surely if the guy let him go, he wasn’t going to. You know. Make the ground go all stupid and too long. 

Never should have taken that arm. Never should have even gone. He was right, Cor was no Shield. That was Clarus. Clarus who’d told him not to go. Who’d laughed at first, then strongly advised against it. Then forbidden it. Then tried to keep him so busy that he didn’t have time to get away. But he wasn’t old like Clarus and didn’t need to sleep.

He needed it now though. Maybe he could find a patch of something soft and just rest for a bit. His vision was going a little hairy, he’d have to keep an eye out. Carefully, because focusing on any one thing for too long made more of them appear. Like that tree. With the patch of moss under it. Now which one was the right one?

The moss was a little more grassy than he thought it would be. The bark at his back hurt. And the jolt, when he finally managed to make it to the ground to sit down, made his vision go completely black for a minute. He must have closed his eyes. That actually helped the headache though, so he did it again. Yeah, that was good. Nice. Better. Yeah.

The next thing that he remembered was firm hands holding something cool on the back of his head and a familiar smell that made him curse. Why was that something he didn’t want? Lavender fabric softener wasn’t bad, was it? Kinda gross, mixed with grease, but that’s just how things were when Weskham and Cid were in the same room.

Oh. 

_ Oh. _

“Wes,” God he sounded like shit. Was he even actually talking at all? “The fuck….”

“Language, Kid,” the gruff sound of Cid’s voice only made his head hurt worse but at least it wasn’t Clarus. Or Regis. 

“Eat my ass,” Cor croaked. 

"Don’t you two start.” Weskham was close at hand and his hands on Cor’s head shifted. Cor winced at the change in pressure passing over what he could only call the most painful injury he’d experienced in his life. Where had  _ that  _ come from?

“I know it hurts but I’ve given you all the magical healing I can for now.” Wes was doing that thing with his voice that he did any time one of them got hurt - pitching it low and trying to be soothing. He just sounded like somebody’s mom. It was dumb.

And really nice. But not even a headache the size of a behemoth was going to make Cor admit that. 

“He’s awake now, we gotta get a move on,” Cid groused, coming closer. “We can’t do a durn thing more for him out here.”

Cor wondered where here was and tried to open his eyes to find out. He snapped them shut again when the weak sunlight of late afternoon stabbed him right in the eyeballs and melted the front part of his brain. Weskham shifted around some more and slid his arms under Cor. With the lift came a groan of both pain and protest.

“I’m not a baby.”

“I am aware of that,” Wes soothed, “But you have a broken arm, an ankle so badly sprained it’s black, and a gash on the back of your head that I can see bone through.”

“Still not a baby.” Though that sounded bad. And felt bad too. Terrible actually, and every one of Wes’s rolling footsteps sent something jolting off into agony that Cor convinced himself would have made anybody cry. So it wasn’t babishness that had tears on his cheeks, it was the pain. And the fact he’d failed. But mostly the pain. 

He was no King’s Shield. And the headaches that would never completely go away would remind him of that for the rest of his life.


End file.
